SC - Family Ties
Well that last upload was a huge bust so I APOLOGIZE but I’m putting it out again. This is in response to a prompt ask by the lovely @rufinagertrude SORRY FOR THE DOUBLE POST.
A mostly-direct sequel to this piece, 3078 words, set after that very uncomfortable conversation between Alex and her father.
—–
“I’m not drunk enough for this,” said Alex, for the third time in almost as many hours.
She and Tahir stood at the edge of a sagging little homestead just past the edge of Poole’s city limits, watching the door from the safety of its meandering fenceline. Alex had cut them a path from harborside at a pace just shy of jogging, and put the city’s crowded boulevards behind them in less than an hour. Now she stood motionless at the gate, frozen, her hands gripped around two of the pickets with enough force to turn her knuckles white.
“He might not be home,” Tahir said after a moment, nudging her gently with an elbow. “He’s got a business of some manner, doesn’t he? It might even keep him away sometimes.”
“As likely as I am to be named the next king of England,” Alex muttered, but something about the words loosened her grip on the fence posts. She took a deep breath, then squared her shoulders and prodded the gate beside them open with the toe of her boot.
“Stay behind me,” she warned Tahir as she slipped in ahead of him. “They’re like to frighten if you appear on their doorstep unannounced.”
Tahir snorted. “The captain flatters me with his kind regard of my appearance.”
“Oh, belay all of that.” The look she spared him over a shoulder was half apologetic, half wry. “You know I mean it as a slight against their delicate sensibilities more than any aspect of yours.“
“So you do mean some slight against me, then?”
Alex rolled her eyes, but Tahir caught the edges of a smile on her lips as she turned away.